King of Montmartre
by alsdssg
Summary: After Satine's death, Zidler sits alone in his office pondering his lies and the ruin of his kingdom.


King of Montmartre

Disclaimer: I only wish that I owned the brilliant movie that is Moulin Rouge.

Harold Zidler sat in his office, his booted feet resting on the edge of the polished desk. For once, there was no oafish grin on his face. Instead, his face was contorted with his grief over his diamond's death as he stared down into the emerald depths of the Green Fairy's infamous liquor: absinthe, the one thing that so many of his dogs and stagehands held on for. For they were all his, every last one of the Moulin Rouge's disreputable inhabitants. He was king of this brothel turned electric theatre.

Well, it wouldn't stay that way for long. Zidler was sure that the vengeful duke would demand his money back and disassemble the theatre at the very best. At the very worst he would shut down the Rouge.

Zidler wondered what he would tell his girls if it came to that. He would have to if it did. He took another swig from the absinthe bottle as he contemplated his latest empty promise.

_Why, goslings, of course the duke won't shut this place down. Too many people like this place. After all, outside it may be raining, but here it's entertaining. _

That statement had brought forth several snickers that came from the general direction of the Four Whores. Zidler wasn't quite sure if they'd seen through his lie or if they were simply mocking his bad pun. It wasn't as though he hadn't expected such things from Nini, Arabia, and Môme Fromage, but he could have sworn that he'd heard a slight snort coming from China Doll. That disturbed him. She had always been the quietest if the most graceful of those four.

But of course they'd be laughing at him. Hadn't he made false promises and told lies to them time after time?

_Harold, you can't let those two back in here. Remember what that one on the left did to me last time?_

_But, China, surely Chocolat will have taught him his lesson by now?_

_What's wrong, Marie?_

_It's nothing, Harry. Chocolat just had to throw the Brothers Grimm out again._

_The who?_

_Oh, that's what Nini calls those two hooligans who come in here. You remember the one who broke China's arm? His brother was the one who got thrown out. You know, Harry, I never tell you how to run your business, but surely you can't allow them in here after two incidents? Juno and Garden Girl were both badly off after those two got their hands on them. _

_Well, Marie, that happens to those two. And there's always Chocolat to make sure that nobody goes too far. _

But Marie didn't stop her stride.

_And didn't one of them get rather rough with Arabia too?_

_Marie, nobody gets rough with her!_

He remembered how Marie had shaken her head and left him alone after that. He'd lied to his own wife then. Every one of his dogs had been "gotten rough with" more than once, and he knew it. And he remembered one of Arabia's worst nights at that moment. Even for money's sake, it had been stupid of him to let those mercenaries back from the Africas into the Rouge.

_Harold, I don't like it. They hate dark people. Look, one of them's missing an eye. _

_Arabia, darling, they hate the dark men. And you're not a man. No, they'll have no problem with you, and if they do, they won't go to you. So just don't go to them, and it'll be alright. _

Even Chocolat had taken a beating that night dragging a drunken soldier with unusually quick reflexes off of Arabia. Harold hadn't looked at Arabia, but the reproachful look in Marie's eyes and the angry look that he would later see in Arabia's had told him all that he needed to know. That had been the last time that he'd been able to look into the coffee-skinned cancan dancer's eyes.

And then there was Môme Fromage, the oldest of the Four Whores. She thought of all of them as her younger sisters to be protected, corrected, and talked down if need be. Zidler had made false promises to her too.

_Sir, it was awful. I know that I don't usually tell you about these things, but don't let that man back in here. He broke an absinthe bottle over her back and kept hitting her and hitting her with it and calling her a fat pig. And he was kicking her too. She's coughing up blood. I think that she broke a rib. And when I pulled him off of her and knocked him out, he tried to hit me. Here's your part of her fee, by the way, sir. She couldn't bring it to you herself. _

That had been the first and the last time that Chocolat had ever told him about an abusive costumer and the first and the last time that Harold Zidler had ever told his bouncers to bar any client with money from the Rouge's halls.

But that hadn't been the end of it for Môme Fromage's abuse. It had only been the beginning of the breaking of Zidler's promise that all of her clients wouldn't be rough. He'd promised that all of the young innocents who entered the Rouge with their fathers' money wouldn't run to the younger and thinner types.

For at twenty six years of age Môme Fromage was beginning to be considered older. That was another sad thing about this place. At fifty six, he was middle-aged, and so were women like Môme Fromage, Nini, Arabia, and Tattoo when they were only in their mid twenties. But when your whole life was drink, smoke, sex, and dance, what else was to be expected?

And with that thought, his thoughts turned to Nini. She'd been there so long, since the age of fifteen, and she'd walked the streets two or three years before that. Nini might have only been twenty three or twenty four—she wasn't quite sure when her birthday was—but she'd seen as much as fifty year old Marie had. For all her steely reserve, harsh kohl-rimmed eyes, and biting cynicism, Nini Legs-in-the-Air had suffered as much as and more than any of the Diamond Dogs.

Zidler remembered the first time that Nini had been abused. It had been the Argentinean who had rescued her that time, not Chocolat. The dark-skinned man had been busy rescuing Arabia from the mercenaries that night and had been unable to come to the Englishwoman's aid. She'd been bleeding, vomiting, and spitting out blood. At least that's what Marie had said.

_She's tough as nails, that girl. _

_Well, that's good.  
No, Harry, it's not. She'll die just as they all will, but she won't try to stop herself because she'll think that she can take just a little bit more, and then one day, a little bit more will be a little too much. _

And maybe Marie was right. Every time a costumer beat Nini, and every time that it called for one of the stagehands to save her, her reserve had grown steelier, her kohl darker, and her cynicism more biting.

And then there had come a broken promise that had been worse for Nini than any blow could.

_In a few years, Nini, you'll be the star of this place. You're the best of them all. You spin faster, kick higher, and make more money than any of them. _

And Nini's eyes had lit up at that prospect in a way that they never lit up anymore. Then the more beautiful but less talented Satine came along, and the promise was broken along with what was left of Nini's heart. And what was worse was that she never showed the break except in her way of mocking Satine with snide comments to which Zidler's diamond could never find a retort.

Perhaps it was that that had driven Nini to tell the Duke about what had happened. After all, the fact that Satine stole her spotlight could have only been aggravated by the fact that Satine had found and taken the one fruit forbidden to all Diamond Dogs: love. She'd dared to love a penniless writer while Nini kept her heart locked away from the Argentinean, the only man to ever attempt to save her from anything. And Nini couldn't take that, so she'd taken the first step to ruining them all. But it was Satine's consumption that had been the final step.

And with that thought, Zidler let the absinthe bottle drop to the floor and crack into pieces just like those that had pierced the flesh of so many Diamond Dogs.

His thoughts had returned to the dead star of the Moulin Rouge once again as he knew that they would again and again, always without warning. She'd been like a daughter to him, and he'd lied to her.

In the beginning, she'd been an orphan whom Marie had brought from the streets. Harold had tentatively suggested a few times that she be allowed to join the Diamond Dogs, but Marie had refused. And Zilder had made another empty promise to the Madame of the brothel.

_Of course I won't let our darling Gosling near those men. Honestly, Marie, I was only joking._

_If you say so, Harry. _

_Of course I do. _

But as Satine grew older and more beautiful, she sometimes ventured into the dancehall during the night out of curiosity, and men began to seek her out until Marie had no choice but to give in to her husband's wishes and give up Satine to the Dogs. But she hadn't needed to truly join them. Instead, she'd worked as simply a courtesan, and then she expressed the desire to learn to dance. And that was when she, and not Nini, became the star of the Moulin Rouge.

And so it had gone. Satine had been the perfect star, the perfect courtesan, abiding by the rule to never fall in love as strictly as Nini had.

Then Christian came to the Moulin Rouge, and Satine fell in love with him at the most pivotal point in her prospective acting career. In Zidler's mind, she was ruining all that for which they had worked for so many years, and so he confronted her.

_The Duke holds the deeds to the Moulin Rouge, he's spending a fortune on you, he's giving you a beautiful new dressing room, he wants to make you a star, and YOU'RE DALYING WITH THE WRITER!_

Satine had tried to deny it of course. She was perhaps the best actress in the Moulin Rouge with her only possible competition being the Four Whores, but Zidler had seen them together and so he told her. She'd tried to pass it off as an infatuation, and Zidler had told her to end it. Satine had said that she would, but she didn't. She kept it going.

His sparkling diamond, his favorite dog, his gosling, his pigeon, his adopted daughter had lied to him. She'd made him a false promise. How strange that had been. He was king of the Moulin Rouge and therefore all of Montmartre, and his most loyal subject had deceived him. But he loved her still, and so he'd tried to help her. He'd warned her of the duke's threat, but then she said those words to him that still haunted him.

_I don't need you anymore! All my life you made believe I was only worth what someone would pay for me! But Christian loves me. He loves me! He loves me, Harold. And that is worth everything! We're going away from you, away from the Duke, away from the Moulin Rouge!_

And then, for the first time in his life, Zidler had told the truth behind his lie. He'd told Satine that she was dying.

She hadn't believed him at first. Why should she? But she knew that it was true. Consumption explained the fainting spells and the blood that came up during her coughing fits. And so Satine had gone to perform her last show, and she'd reunited with the lover that Zidler had told her to send away. Two of his subjects had disobeyed him, and they'd brought about his and his kingdom's ruin.

It wasn't as though he'd tried to prevent the ruin. He had. He'd told the duke his stupidest and most bold-faced lie ever, and his investor had swallowed it whole. That was one of the funny things about lies. They didn't have to be good stories. One just had to know how to make them convincing. And Harold Zidler knew about convincing lies.

It was those lies that made his courtesans, stagehands, and customers stick around. It was the empty promise of false love and fleeting pleasures that kept them all there. And because of Zidler's empty promises, everyone in Montmartre lived up to the place's name,Mountain of Martyrs, because they sacrificed any hope for the Bohemian ideals of truth, freedom, beauty, and love. The king himself was a martyr. A martyr for money.


End file.
